Sen. Cantwell pushes for ‘technology NATO’ as one way to counter China rather than tariffs

U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) said the Trump administration’s tariff policies will be especially harmful to Washington state and the Pacific Northwest and that innovation and alliances are the key to maintaining global competitiveness, not a trade war.

In a Q&A session with the Washington Council of International Trade (WCIT) in Seattle on Monday, Cantwell pushed for a “technology NATO” as a more effective way to counter China.

“What if the five most sophisticated democracies in technology — like the U.S., India, Japan — set the rules?” Cantwell said, stressing that such a coalition could establish global standards for tech, ensuring privacy protection and preventing government backdoors in technology products.

“The biggest issue we have with China is technology,” Cantwell added, referencing the $3 billion Congress approved for U.S. telecom companies to rip out and replace equipment made by Chinese firms Huawei and ZTE. “The biggest issue that we can counter them on, on a worldwide basis right now, is to say that people shouldn’t be buying their technology.”

Cantwell helped spearhead bipartisan support for passage of the $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act in 2022. The bill included incentives for reinvigorating semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S., with investments in R&D for AI, robotics, clean energy, nuclear power, quantum and other areas.

In his address to Congress earlier this month, President Trump sparked panic among lawmakers with his call to scrap the CHIPS and Science Act, which he called a “horrible, horrible thing.”

On Monday, Cantwell warned against tariffs on semiconductor chips, arguing that they would hurt the U.S. tech industry at a critical time of investment in domestic chip manufacturing.

The ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, Cantwell called Washington one of the most trade-dependent states in the country. She said Trump’s focus on punitive tariffs is fundamentally at odds with how the Pacific Northwest has historically built its trade economy.

“The consequences to us in the Pacific Northwest is really a threat to our ethos,” Cantwell said. “We believe that innovation matters more than the tariffs in a fight [on] who’s going to win in aerospace or agriculture or software or any of these issues. It is like we are in this horse race, but the president wants to put 25 pounds on our horse and make it harder.”

The WCIT Trade Summit also featured U.S. Reps. Suzan DelBene (D,WA-01), Rick Larsen (D, WA-02), Dan Newhouse (R, WA-04), Kim Schrier (D, WA-08), Adam Smith (D, WA-09), and Emily Randall (D, WA-06).

Cantwell was joined in the Q&A by Demetrios Marantis, former U.S. Trade Representative and current National Foreign Trade Council president.

Here are more key quotes from Cantwell’s appearance:

• “What I don’t think the president understands is how fast change is happening, how much innovation really matters in driving what you’re going to do and how you’re going to be successful.”
• “In an Information Age economy, it is more imperative than ever to build alliances.”
• “We’ve been trading with China before Lewis and Clark showed up, and we’re not going to stop. The question is, how do we get a better upper hand?”
• “Make no mistake about it — one of the states that could see the biggest economic impacts from this is ours. And we have to be very loud about how foregoing an alliance approach of building more opportunities is really what we should be doing, if we want to win in an economy that changes in the blink of an eye.”

Watch video of the event here.